I almost put this on my Facebook wall but decided it fits here better:
It is important to recognize the difference between the way that the "newer" religion looks at its concept of God and the way that the "older" religion looks at the "newer" religion's concept of God. Just as it is understandable that a Jew who has not converted to Christianity believes that the Christian and he do not worship the same God, and this does follow from his premises, so it is with Christianity and Islam. The Muslim, whose religion changes the concept of God in important ways from that of the Judeo-Christian tradition, claims that there is an essential continuity, but the Christian, as long as he remains a Christian and not a Muslim, should reject this.
In the same way, the Christian insists that the Trinity is not a change in the concept of God and is consistent with Judaism, but unless a Jewish person converts, he believes this to be false. As soon as a modern Jew decides that the Trinity is not that big of a deal as compared to his previous concept of God, he to some extent has accepted Christian ideas. This fundamental asymmetry between the way of viewing the question from the perspective of older and newer religion must be understood and maintained.
That is why, recognizing the important innovations in Islam, we as Christians should hold that we and Muslims do not worship the same God. That Muslims say that we do is not the determining factor, because we aren't Muslims.
No theories in philosophy of language get around the need to decide how important the differences are between the Muslim and Christian concept of God. And if they are sufficiently crucial, then we should not say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
Update: Some have tried to make an analogy to cases of what is called "opacity of reference." For example, Clark Kent and Superman are the same person even though Clark Kent's co-workers don't know this. The morning star and the evening star are the same heavenly body, and this is true even if someone thinks that they are different. But this analogy, if anything, tells us that the Christian definitely should disbelieve that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, though Christians can believe that the God of Abraham is the same God that he (the Christian) worships. In the latter case, Christians believe (though modern, non-messianic Jews deny) that the same Being caused the origins of Judaism--the promises to Abraham, the Exodus, etc.--and the origins of Christianity--the resurrection of Jesus, etc. In that sense, the Christian says that the God of Abraham is the same entity as the God we worship, just as the morning star really is the evening star. But no Christian should believe that the God whom Jesus represented is the same entity who caused the origins of Islam! On the contrary, we as Christians should emphatically deny this. That point alone puts paid to any attempted analogies of the problem to that of the morning star and the evening star. It also distinguishes what the Christian claims about the relationship of Christianity to Judaism from what the Christian believes about the relationship of Christianity to Islam. The point is not that only a Trinitarian can be in some sense worshiping the true God. Abraham was not a Trinitarian but was worshiping the true God. But Abraham, we believe, really was in touch with the true God. The true God really was the source of Abraham's revelations. The true God was not the source of Mohammad's.
I agree that we don't worship the Mohammedan idol, but can't see how and where trinitarianism is in any way consistent with Judaism - with the OT, yes; with rabbinical Judaism, no. Please elaborate.
ReplyDeleteIf by "rabbinical Judaism" you mean a form of Judaism that _explicitly denies_ the deity of Jesus and the Trinity, being partly developed in opposition to Christianity, then of course those two systems of thought are not compatible.
ReplyDeleteBut that is precisely my point: The Christian is advocating the _later_ religion and says that his religion is consistent with and builds on the earlier--in this case, on Old Testament Judaism. (Which you agree is consistent with Christianity.) The Christian says that he is preaching a _new revelation_ of the same God who revealed himself in the Old Covenant.
Therefore, the Christian says that his God is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Jewish thinker who _explicitly rejects_ Christianity believes that Trinitarianism is _not_ consistent with the Old Testament and is a very significant departure in the concept of God. Hence, as an unconverted representative of the older religion, who explicitly rejects the supposed developments of the newer religion, the post-Christian, unconverted Jew _cannot_ consistently agree that Christians are worshiping the same God that he worships.
My point is that we Christians stand to Muslims in something like the same position that explicitly unconverted, post-incarnation Jews stand to Christianity.
By rabbinical Judaism I mean that perverion of OT religion against which Jesus railed, and was the religion along with Christianity which stood once the dust of Jerusalem's destruction settled. My point is that Judaism and OT religion are nit synonymous, so all Judaism is by definition antitrinitarian.
ReplyDeleteThat's a silly use of the term "Judaism," and I won't acquiesce in it.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, there was no reason for 2nd Temple rabbinical Judaism _before_ Christ to be "anti-trinitarian," because the issue of the Trinity, or even of the deity of _one_ more person of the Godhead (the Son) didn't even come up until Jesus had already come on the scene. So it wasn't until after Christianity was established that rabbinical Judaism became anti-trinitarian and anti-deity of Jesus. The religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees with which Jesus clashed couldn't have been anti-trinitarian, because it was in place before he even showed up.
But in any event, to refuse to call OT Judaism "Judaism" is just ridiculous. Certainly one can make distinctions between varieties of Judaism, both ancient and modern. And such distinctions are useful. But there's no good reason to refuse to use the term for, say, the beliefs of King David.
Good post.
ReplyDeleteInteresting and stimulating post, Lydia.
ReplyDeleteSince the Trinity theology developed (4th c.), it may be the more Jews say that Christians don't worship the same god, but I don't see any trace of this in the NT. Their earlier view was just that Jesus was a false Messiah, a kind of false prophet, misleading the people with respect to the will and ways of the one God, e.g. telling Jews they no longer have to keep the law. Similar to the false prophets in several OT episodes.
About current day Jews, won't many just say that Christian do worship their god, mistakenly of course, as falsely holding him to be triune? Clearly, you can refer to a being and be very mistaken about his essential properties. e.g. Some Christians think God is strictly timeless, others deny it. But Brian Leftow and Bill Craig both manage to refer to the same being, right, and they disagree about at least one essential attribute.
About this "same god" dustup, I'm inclined to take a contrary view. http://trinities.org/blog/not-the-same-founding-father/
I've got another post scheduled for Tuesday, where I try to address this issue of who actually caused the genesis of Islam. I would very much like to hear your argue back on either or both posts. Needless to say, I agree that God did not give revelations to Muhammad. But I think this doesn't settle the issue on the con side.
God bless & Merry Christmas,
Dale
Unsurprisingly, we disagree about when Trinitarian theology arose, Dale.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that chronological question can be set aside here.
Actually, the accusations of blasphemy against Jesus in the NT are pretty closely related to the "worship the same God" question. That is to say, the chief priests, confronted with the idea that Jesus seemed to be claiming equality with God, held this to be strictly impossible and denied it vehemently. Therefore, one could say with (I think) some plausibility that they would have said that anyone who held that God could become a man was teaching another concept of God, essentially so, and hence not worshiping the God taught in the Old Testament--in fact, teaching a form of paganism, idolatry, etc.
So, although of course the opposition to Trinitarianism has become more explicit as time has gone on in post-incarnation Judaism, it is there in a proto form in the statements that Jesus was blaspheming by making himself equal with the Father.
By the way, I don't recall any accusation in the gospels that Jesus was teaching people generally that they did not have to obey the law. There were particular ceremonial laws (such as hand washing) that his disciples were accused of breaking, as well as Jesus' healing on the Sabbath, but the _broad_ accusation of teaching Jews generally that they did not need to keep the law of Moses was first made against Paul in the book of Acts.
I would say that if two different people make different claims about essential properties of the God they worship, and if they consider these essential properties as they preach them to be crucially important to the religion they are preaching, this constitutes a prima facie case for saying that they do not worship the same God. In fact, there is _one sense_ in which that is a knock-down case--in terms of their knowledge and intentions, they _just are_ worshiping deities who are different in their essential properties.
However, one can respond to this prima facie case and argue that _in another sense_ they are both worshiping the same God, but one bears a burden of proof to make that case at that point. In other words, just hand waving about opacity of reference or the bare possibility that the two terms could have the same referent will not do.
I would say that one may be able to argue that there is _a sense_ in which people who hold to different essential properties for God, which are important to their religious teaching, worship the same God if you _really do_ have a morning star/evening star situation. That is to say, Bill Craig and John Milton (who was an Arian) both hold to religious beliefs whose origin was brought about by the coming of Jesus. One can say that even though Arianism is false, its origin is in the same being (God the Father) who caused the events that brought Christianity into existence, which is why Arianism is considered a distinctly Christian heresy.
So in one sense, Arians and Christians worship different Gods, because Arians deny the Trinity and the deity of Jesus. But in another sense, they might be said to worship the same God because the true God's actions are the kick-off for both Arianism and orthodox Christianity, even though Arians believe falsely about God.
This was my point about Mohammad's visions: That in the case of Islam you _don't have_ that sort of morning star/evening star argument based upon the causal origins of the religion, so that concept of opacity will not _do the work_ to satisfy the burden of proof created by the prima facie seriously different concepts in Islam and in Christianity.
I would go farther concerning a prima facie case and a particular sense of "do not worship the same God."
ReplyDeleteI think we should place enough importance upon central acts of self-revelation as to say that, if Religion A _denies_ some act of revelation by the God it worships which Religion B affirms and makes foundational to its own existence, then there is a sense in which Religion A and B do not worship the same God. Any argument that in another sense they do is going to have to satisfy a burden of proof.
I cannot imagine telling Moses, "I worship the same God you do, but I think that this same God _did not_ speak to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
That would be ridiculous. From the first encounter with Moses, God defines himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Similarly, to tell Jew after the Exodus, "I worship the same God you do, but I deny that he brought you up out of the land of Egypt" would make no sense. They believed that God said, when giving the law, "I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other Gods before me."
God is always defining himself by his _acts_. There is something highly artificial, and I would say unbiblical, in down-playing the importance of central, religion-founding _acts_ by God.
This means that _in one sense_ the post-Incarnation Jew and the Christian do not worship the same God, since the post-Incarnation Jew denies the resurrection of Jesus--a foundational act of God for Christianity, according to Christians.
However, Christians can satisfy a burden of proof for arguing that _in another sense_ those Jews and we worship the same God, because we believe that the same entity who performed _their_ foundational acts in history also performed ours.
Since Christians deny the foundational act of revelation which Muslims claim for the founding of Islam--that Mohammad was sent as a prophet--there is a sense right there in which Christians do not worship the God of Islam.
I think that a refusal to place any emphasis at all upon the foundational acts of God is a confused kind of triumph of overly abstract philosophy over the importance of revealed religion.
Now, to be clear, I also think there are aspects of the Muslim concept that are incompatible with the philosophical properties of the Judeo-Christian God. For example, voluntarism is incompatible with the omnibenevolence of essential nature postulated by classical theism.
So the Islam-Christianity case can be argued both based on the acts of God and based on philosophy. (Which is why Beckwith's attempt to appeal to "classical theism" is also unsuccessful. Quite arguably, Muslims do not hold a consistent version of classical theism.)
By the way, Dale, I notice that in your post you bring up the claim that Christians should allow that Muslims are worshiping the same God if they think that Jews are.
ReplyDeleteMy post here addresses that. You are making the same type of symmetry claim that I think is fairly easily refuted. Christians do not stand in an historically or theologically symmetrical position vis a vis Judaism and Islam.
Moreover, it's odd that you seem to think that the fact that Mohammad _claimed_ to be worshiping the God who spoke to Abraham is an argument that he _was_ doing so. Why are we bound to accept that? After all, someone could come along and say that he worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that, unbeknownst to us, it was really the FSM who spoke to Abraham. Obviously, we wouldn't be bound to say that the Christian God and the FSM are the same God just because the sincere pastafarian thinks the FSM was really the entity who spoke to Abraham.
So I think it's rather facile to adduce Mohammad's own claims as if they constitute any kind of strong argument.
Hi Lydia,
ReplyDeleteAbout pre-4th c. trinitarianism, yes, let's set that aside for now. A few replies:
"Therefore, one could say with (I think) some plausibility that they would have said that anyone who held that God could become a man was teaching another concept of God, essentially so, and hence not worshiping the God taught in the Old Testament--in fact, teaching a form of paganism, idolatry, etc."
This is trying to get a lot out the accusation of blasphemy at his trial, and the few accusations from wrong-headed interlocutors in the gospel of John. Again, I don't see any Jewish "different god" accusations in the NT. I'd be curious to hear from someone more familiar with the vast post-NT ancient Jewish material on this. e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Talmud-Peter-Sch%C3%A4fer/dp/0691143188
" I don't recall any accusation in the gospels that Jesus was teaching people generally that they did not have to obey the law."
Oh, I meant Paul and his followers. Obviously, Jesus kept the law his whole life, though not always as some of his fellow Jews understood it.
"if two different people make different claims about essential properties of the God they worship, and if they consider these essential properties as they preach them to be crucially important to the religion they are preaching, this constitutes a prima facie case for saying that they do not worship the same God."
I think that's right.
"just hand waving about opacity of reference or the bare possibility that the two terms could have the same referent will not do."
Agreed.
"So in one sense, Arians and Christians worship different Gods, because Arians deny the Trinity and the deity of Jesus. But in another sense, they might be said to worship the same God because the true God's actions are the kick-off for both Arianism and orthodox Christianity, even though Arians believe falsely about God."
Yes, and all the more clearly in the days when both were just thought of as catholics, and in the same churches, and pretty much the same in practice, and largely also in belief. But saying, e.g. Eusebius and Athanasius "worship different gods" is at best misleading. Much better to just say that they disagree somewhat about God (and about Jesus).
"This was my point about Mohammad's visions: That in the case of Islam you _don't have_ that sort of morning star/evening star argument based upon the causal origins of the religion, so that concept of opacity will not _do the work_ to satisfy the burden of proof created by the prima facie seriously different concepts in Islam and in Christianity."
ReplyDeleteBut the causes go back to earlier than the cave incident. He was apparently talking theology with Jews and Christians earlier in his life. He made the connection that this angel in the cave was the messenger of *that* god, that of the Jews and Christians. I think that causal considerations support my side of this. He even took the title/name used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians, and perhaps by some other monotheists.
"I think we should place enough importance upon central acts of self-revelation as to say that, if Religion A _denies_ some act of revelation by the God it worships which Religion B affirms and makes foundational to its own existence, then there is a sense in which Religion A and B do not worship the same"
Suppose I claim that God told me, today, that we're all to stop celebrating Christmas. He appeared to me, I say, as a Christmas-hating God. Also, he's got four arms. I saw them. Now, this is wacky stuff, but if you ask me which god this was, and I say it was the god of the Bible... well, that's who I'm (falsely) talking about, right? Aren't I able to refer to that, to your god, despite my weird beliefs? What's the difference between this and the case of Islam? It seems to me, mostly: length of time, size of tradition, different name used. That essential features are at issue. But I don't see that these differences matter. Certainly, some alleged descriptions and acts are more central than others to various religious traditions.
"Christians can satisfy a burden of proof for arguing that _in another sense_ those Jews and we worship the same God, because we believe that the same entity who performed _their_ foundational acts in history also performed ours."
That's precisely what Muslims think. Of course, I disagree, but they identify their god as the one who sent Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, and Abe.
Lydia, don't you want to say that Muh is a false prophet of our God, rather than just allowing that he may have been sent by some being or other, just not by God? Consider these false prophets - their immediate source was a lying angel, but still, those were false prophets of YHWH, according to the text. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Chronicles+18&version=NIV
I believe, btw, that this was the initial reaction of Christians and Jews to him - basically, OK, we understand that you claim to be a prophet *of God*, but we're not buying it.
"Christians do not stand in an historically or theologically symmetrical position vis a vis Judaism and Islam."
True, but I think this is a red herring. Certainly, Christianity is more closely related to Judaism than Islam is to either. But...?
"Moreover, it's odd that you seem to think that the fact that Mohammad _claimed_ to be worshiping the God who spoke to Abraham is an argument that he _was_ doing so. Why are we bound to accept that?"
Because the point is mainly about reference. Not about sameness of theology, continuity of tradition, equality of religions, etc. I think it's about more than reference too... a post on that tomorrow. (I'm always more interested in theological points, though, than politics and culture-war stuff, interesting though that may be.)
As Aristotle would say "X is the same god as Y" is said in many ways. But how do Muslims mean it? They've always been aware of the theological disagreements over essential attributes and actions. Their point is mainly about reference - "Allah" is none other than the god who sent Abe, etc. I think the best move is to just concede that - that they are referring to God, and now let's see who *really is* the last and best revelation of God - Jesus or Muhammad. I like that matchup, and I'll wager that you do too.
ReplyDelete"After all, someone could come along and say that he worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that, unbeknownst to us, it was really the FSM who spoke to Abraham. Obviously, we wouldn't be bound to say that the Christian God and the FSM are the same God just because the sincere pastafarian thinks the FSM was really the entity who spoke to Abraham."
OK, this would be a non-standard pastafarian. :-) But let's say there was an Abrahamic sect of pastafarians that were realists about the whole thing, and that said that it was FSM who spoke to Abe. Yes, I think such a group would be making false claims about the God of Jews and Christians, namely that he did whatever exploits are claimed for FSM.
Notice that the idea that Allah is the god of Abe is very central to Islam, and always has been. It is all over, e.g. Sura 2. It's so central that we can fairly say that the point (the identity of Allah with the god who sent Abe, Moses, Jesus) is a standard and essential Islamic teaching. This is a difference with your FSM thought experiment. Muh had every intention of vacuuming up the Jews and Christians to add to his followers; slaying them was plan B. Hence, the heavy, early emphasis on continuity, including the same god claim.
Will post again on this tomorrow - thanks for the argument & God bless.
"
ReplyDeleteBut the causes go back to earlier than the cave incident. He was apparently talking theology with Jews and Christians earlier in his life. He made the connection that this angel in the cave was the messenger of *that* god, that of the Jews and Christians. I think that causal considerations support my side of this."
Well, two things: First of all, his concept of the nature of that God has gotten really changed as compared to theirs, and in several extremely important respects, such as voluntarism (which isn't compatible with either of those religions) and strict, necessary anti-trinitarianism. Not just that God _isn't_ a Trinity, but that he _can't_ be, and Jesus _can't_ be God incarnate. Again, that is a _rejection_ of the Christian concept of God, and in that sense he _wasn't_ saying that "the angel in the cave was the messenger of that God." This creates a prima facie case that he is not preaching the same God.
"He even took the title/name used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians, and perhaps by some other monotheists. " People keep mentioning this, but it gets a big shrug from me. If I wanted to preach that Yahweh was really an alien from the planet Zork, I might still call him Yahweh. That wouldn't mean I was preaching about anything like the same God.
"That's precisely what Muslims think. Of course, I disagree, but they identify their god as the one who sent Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, and Abe."
But they're _wrong_. And the question is whether _you_ and other Christians, who think that they are _wrong_, should say that Muslims and Christians _really do_ worship the same God. It's bizarre that the question of whether they are right or wrong should be treated as irrelevant!
That's the whole asymmetry point I've been making all along. This is why it makes sense to me that modern Jews deny that we and they worship the same God while we affirm that we do. That is logical, given what the theology and historical claims of each group are. And by that same logic, Christians should _deny_ that they and Muslims worship the same God, just as modern Jews should deny that they and Christians worship the same God (unless they want to consider converting, which would be great).
"I believe, btw, that this was the initial reaction of Christians and Jews to him - basically, OK, we understand that you claim to be a prophet *of God*, but we're not buying it."
That is completely compatible with saying, "We and Mohammad's followers do not worship the same God." One can make an accusation of attempted appropriation without making some sort of interfaith claim that, "Oh, you guys worship the real, true God, but you do so imperfectly." Good grief, it would seem to me that this is obvious. Just take some extreme case where someone tries to appropriate a name of a deity and one or two incidents for preaching a _wildly_ different being.
"Their point is mainly about reference - "Allah" is none other than the god who sent Abe, etc. I think the best move is to just concede that - that they are referring to God, and now let's see who *really is* the last and best revelation of God - Jesus or Muhammad."
ReplyDelete"OK, this would be a non-standard pastafarian. :-) But let's say there was an Abrahamic sect of pastafarians that were realists about the whole thing, and that said that it was FSM who spoke to Abe. Yes, I think such a group would be making false claims about the God of Jews and Christians, namely that he did whatever exploits are claimed for FSM."
Okay, at that point, you've really bitten the bullet on the reductio. If I understand you correctly, you appear to be saying that *all it should take* for Christians to say that so-and-so "worships the same God" that the Christians worship is that this person claims _one_ crucial incident in the Bible, even if he denies a bunch of others, and says (falsely) that the deity he is preaching was really the deity behind that incident. And at that point even the nature of the being he's preaching doesn't matter; we should still say that he and we "worship the same God." It could be a physical monster with spaghetti arms.
Presumably, by that standard, it could be Mickey Mouse, an alien, or the god Mercury, according to this prophet. But if he says it was "the same being who appeared to Abraham," then _we_ should say, "We and the worshiper of Mickey Mouse worship the same God." Because _he_ claims that, in _just that respect_, we do.
Not only is this wildly counterintuitive, it also cuts you off from the arguments being made by other people who are in some sense on your side of the issue. Beckwith and co. are making a big deal about monotheism, for example. They are also trying (albeit unconvincingly, IMO) to claim that Muslims are "classical theists." (Um, no, they're not.) But you have set the bar so low that the FSM or a god in a polytheistic pantheon could easily satisfy it.
Now, I can understand that someone who is (if I may say so) somewhat ignorant of Islam might get this confused idea that they are just "monotheists like us" only with some unfortunate accessories added and removed. (I have referred to this in private heretofore as a Mr. Potato Head view of monotheism.)
I think that someone who thinks that needs to get both a better knowledge of the Islamic concept of God and a more robust idea of the importance of both Judaic and Christian ideas about God.
But at least one sort of understands how the confusion arose--from an overemphasis upon monotheism.
Your position, as I understand it, does not even have the advantage of _that_ degree of initial plausibility, because it appears to require nothing more than a claim by the advocate of the other religion that his is "the same God" that appeared to Abraham!
"Lydia, don't you want to say that Muh is a false prophet of our God, rather than just allowing that he may have been sent by some being or other, just not by God?"
ReplyDeleteI think the phrase "false prophet of our God" is confused and is conflating concepts that need to be teased out. I think he is making a false claim _that_ the deity he wants to talk about is the God who appeared to Abraham. That is completely compatible with saying that he is trying to get people to worship a false god. Hence, that those who follow him are _not_ worshiping the same God that we worship.
In fact, I think he may have been confused by a vision from Satan. I'm open to that, though my argument doesn't depend on it.
I suppose it's also possible that Mohammad made the whole thing up. (I definitely think Joseph Smith was a charlatan. I doubt that Joseph Smith worshiped _any_ God other than himself, though his followers worship the false, hence non-existent, god that he dreamed up.)
And again, the phrase "trying to get people to worship a false god" is intended to mean that, given what he says about that deity, the god Mohammad preached is _in fact_ a false god. If Mohammad was sincere, he really thought that the deity he was preaching was the same deity that appeared to Abraham. (Which could also be the case for a sincere, "Abrahamic" pastafarian or Mickey Mouse worshiper.) But that doesn't mean that _Christians_ should say that he was preaching "the true God, only imperfectly."
ReplyDeleteHi Lydia (I assume I am referring to the same Lydia!). I restarted my old blog (Beyond Necessity) to ponder this question. See Genesis and Reference .
ReplyDeleteAll comments welcome.